The present invention relates generally to methods for determining lipid fatty acid compositions, and more particularly to the use of an improved method for determining lipid fatty acid compositions and its use in diagnosing coronary artery disease and diabetes.
Lipid fatty acids are analyzed in blood serum or plasma, as well as in other physiological fluids and tissues, for a variety of reasons. A primary reason has been in the search for diagnostic predictors for coronary heart disease, diabetes, platelet dysfunction and renal disease. Unfortunately, the serum levels of only a limited number of individual fatty acids have been found statistically significant for coronary artery disease and diabetes.
Saturated fats are known to increase coronary artery disease, or CAD, and polyunsaturated fatty acids, such as are found in fish and in certain plants, have been shown to decrease the incidence of CAD. For this and other reasons, numerous researchers have investigated and published papers on serum lipid fatty acid composition and heart disease. The results have been largely contradictory. Some studies showed small decreases in cholesterol linoleate, while others showed no change in that fatty acid. Because of these contradictory results, lipid fatty acids have not become part of routine testing.
Current methods for analyzing lipid fatty acids report the fatty acid compositions in relative terms as either percentage by weight of total fatty acids (weight percentages) or percentage by moles of total moles of all fatty acids (mole percentages). With such methods, changes in each individual fatty acid has an influence on the relative percentages of the other fatty acids. As a result, exact information on the fatty acid compositions are not obtained and the information is difficult to interpret.
Thus it is seen that there is a need for improved methods for analyzing and reporting fatty acid compositions in blood serum or plasma that will better reveal the expected, but previously undiscovered, relationships between fatty acid compositions and heart and other diseases.
It is, therefore, a principal object of the present invention to provide an improved method for analyzing and reporting fatty acid compositions, particularly in blood serum or plasma.
Another principal object of the present invention is to provide new statistically significant risk factors for coronary artery disease and for diabetes.
It is a feature of the present invention that it permits quantification of individual fatty acids in absolute terms, such as mg/L, rather than in relative terms such as percentages.
It is another feature of the present invention that it uses conventional laboratory equipment and supplies.
It is an advantage of the present invention that it provides greater diagnostic accuracy and sensitivity than prior art methods for determining lipid fatty acid compositions.
It is another advantage of the present invention that its concentration-based results can be more easily interpreted in metabolic, dietary and therapeutic terms than existing methods of reporting results.
It is a further advantage of the present invention that its improved method of analyzing and reporting fatty acid compositions will improve other areas where analysis of fatty acid compositions are used, such as in microbial identification systems, and for analyzing food products, such as dairy, meat, fish and seed oils, for accurate reporting and labeling of the saturated and unsaturated fatty acid content of foods and food products.
It is yet another advantage of the present invention that the increased knowledge of free acid concentrations will lead to better diagnosis and treatment of many diseases.
These and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent as the description of certain representative embodiments proceeds.